MARIETTA, GEORGIA | The Atlanta Country Club has been out of the public eye for nearly a generation. With a nearly completed multimillion-dollar renovation of the golf course, that’s about to change.
“A lot of people aren’t familiar with our club,” club president David Birdwell said. “We think this is a good chance to re-introduce ourselves.”
The Atlanta Country Club, located in suburban Cobb County northwest of Atlanta, was founded in 1964 and brought championship golf to the area in 1967 when it began and hosted the Atlanta Golf Classic. The tournament, played under various titles, became a fixture on the PGA Tour. It even hosted the first Players Championship in 1974, which was won by Jack Nicklaus.
The tournament was one of the most popular venues for the players, who enjoyed the Willard Byrd-designed course and the Southern hospitality poured out during the week. Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Lee Trevino were regulars. Later it was Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite. And players of that era were universally disappointed when the tournament was moved to TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Georgia, after 1997. When the tournament disappeared to Gwinnett County, the Atlanta Country Club slowly faded into the background.
Until now.
Once the renovation is finished, the club will once again get in the competition business – as a prospective site for the Georgia Amateur Championship, USGA qualifiers or even some USGA championships.
The renovation started when the club decided to replace the 60-year-old irrigation system that was clogged or had crumbled. But after digging into the details, the club decided to be more aggressive and take care of a checklist of items that needed to be handled.
After speaking with numerous architects, the ACC opted to hire Beau Welling Design to create the changes and Medalist Golf to implement the plan on the ground. Among Welling’s recent projects are PGA Frisco in Texas, Greenville (South Carolina) Country Club and Bluejack National in Montgomery, Texas.
“I really liked the club and the people,” Welling said. “They’re very passionate about the Atlanta Country Club, and you like to see that. I felt like I had a real opportunity to help them achieve their goals and objectives. We were delighted that they asked us to get involved.”
The new Atlanta Country Club is unique for many reasons, including the turf. The fairways are lined with new Zorro Zoysia, but the green complexes and surrounds are sodded with Tahoma 31 bermudagrass, which can be cut tighter and offers more playability options than the zoysia.
ACC is a rare Atlanta-area club that has withstood the pressure to switch to Bermuda greens. A survey revealed the membership was heavily in favor of keeping the bentgrass greens, so a new 007XL strain, considered one of the “super bents,” will be used.
But in order to keep the bentgrass greens healthy and playable all year – and avoid summer problems – the club invested heavily in a state-of-the-art Hydronics system. Committee members visited Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma – which has hosted 15 major championships – and were swayed by how those greens produced firm, healthy conditions under hot, humid conditions.
The Hydronics temperature-control system is built below each green. Water is fed through tubing placed a foot below the surface. Cool water is used in the summer and warm water is used in the winter to ensure the root system enjoys healthy growing conditions.
The temperature can be controlled by superintendent Scott Lambert, the highly respected 30-something magician who spent nine years learning the ropes from the esteemed William Shirley at Peachtree Golf Club. Lambert joined the ACC in 2018, following behind Mark Esoda, a member of the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame.
In addition to the new greens, the club is adding numerous greenside and fairway bunkers using the Bunker Solutions concept. The company’s liners are specially created to keep sand on the face of the bunkers and funnel water toward drainage areas. And the spartan liners surrounding the bunkers are quite a different look from the popular stacked sod at other courses and offer a more fearsome, intimidating appearance for the players.
“We changed the whole bunker system in terms of the way it looks,” Welling said. “And from a maintenance standpoint, it’s going to be a much better long-term situation for the club.”
An additional 13 new forward tees were created, a move welcomed by an aging group of players, and most holes got a tweak of some sort. Two holes underwent a complete redesign – the previously mundane par-3 third hole and the par-5 11th hole that members rated as the “most boring hole” on the course.
The change at No. 3 was suggested by World Golf Hall of Famer Larry Nelson, a three-time major champion and a longtime member of Atlanta Country Club. (Nelson was also a two-time winner of the Atlanta Golf Classic.) The tee boxes, enlarged by 40 percent, were shifted to the left to give it a different look. The long, downhill hole remains a handful.
The biggest change came at No. 11, where the fairway was lowered in places by 25 feet and the green was lowered by 8 feet to bring an adjacent pond into play. The green now plays like a reverse Redan, with the slope running front-to-back.
“It’s a totally new golf hole,” Welling said. “We felt like we had a bit more license to work on it, so it’s a big change. It’s literally a brand new hole, and I think the members are going to enjoy it.”
Some of the more iconic holes were left alone.
A back bunker was removed at No. 13, the short par-3 with a natural waterfall in the front that is perhaps the club’s most famous hole.
Nothing changed at the par-5 18th, a banana-shaped dogleg left with a pond running all along the left side. It plays to an amphitheater green – where thousands used to congregate for the finish of the Atlanta Classic – that tempts players into a risk-reward gamble.
And No. 17, a solid par-4, was not changed at the behest of Nelson.
“Larry said this was the best driving hole on the golf course and we shouldn’t touch it,” said Darren Devore, the club’s vice president and chairman of the renovation oversight committee. “So we didn’t.”
The club is building a new short-game area, a new putting green and a warm-up green, and is expanding the range to produce a 40-percent larger hitting area. The back porch of the clubhouse is being reworked and will have places for outdoor dining and mingling.
“We had a whole series of focus groups, and we ultimately sat down with the membership to talk about goals and objectives,” Welling said. “We took their feelings about the golf course and sort of fused it with our thoughts and experiences and ultimately started to present solutions to meet goals and objections.”
Now it’s almost time to open. The front nine, which already has had a chance to grow in, looks pristine. The greens were scheduled to be planted soon. And the course is expected to open for play in December.
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Top: Club president David Birdwell (right) and Darren Devore, club VP and renovation chair, beam over project.
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